User blog:Capi3101/WCRPG Update for September 15, 2014
Greetings, Wingnuts and Citizens! Time for the Weekly WCRPG Update. Well, this was a moderately auspicious week for Elegy, and not due to Piranha's announcement of their Transverse project either, towards which I'm ambivalent; while I would like to see a new official WC game myself, I trust the judgment of both the RSI and CIC communities - and a large number of folks in those communities are adamantly against that particular group building any WC titles due to their experience with Pirahna's MechWarrior Online. No, this week was auspicious because I wrote the first lines of Elegy's introduction. That work got started on Tuesday, after I finished up stats for the Stalker EW craft on Monday and a character profile for Honeybear from Saga. Once the Stalker was complete, I was also able to finally finish up the Arcadia-class of carriers (as I mentioned in the last update), so I went ahead and figured up its final stats as well. The opening lines of the campaign I've given to an unidentified Kilrathi - I know who's talking, and those who play/read through the finished campaign will ultimately know who is talking as well, but I have my reasons for not saying who it is right off the bat. Work on the introductory lines went into Wednesday due to the fact that I did them as a parallel translation, English and Kilrathi. I find that even at this late date I still have to generate new words or phrases for the language - for example, "deign to speak" was rendered as jaqtalanmaksle, literally "come down and talk", which I think is close enough for jazz... Thursday and Friday were spent working on Elegy characters. I realized Wednesday night that I didn't have specific histories for the Bloodeye, Ra'Khaj and ko Thrakhaxal characters, so I went ahead and rolled out an auto-generated set for those three; I'll refine them when I get a chance. I finished out the day working on the history of the character of Dya'a'ji, for whom I decided to create a "shadow warrior" history - hafik'hra ("hidden in water person") is the specific term I used, and they'll be treated in a similar manner to shinobi in feudal japan (i.e. as a taboo "non-truth"). Certainly there will be more to that character than just a simple keeper of the group's rations. Dya'a'ji saw some work on Friday as well before I moved on to the Le'a'he character, who will have a history as an entertainer (and will be in charge of the group's morale). I'm still working on his history and I need to explain how he winds up in the pack; getting him to T'Kon H'hra was easy enough but I'll need something plausible in order to explain how he winds up in the Pack. I have two characters left for which I need to work basic histories; one of them I want to make a katagu (offspring of a kamikaze pilot), the other some kind of mercenary off the bat. Histories are coming along; again the big issue with them is finding enough time to get a meaningful amount of work done on them. The Plan hasn't changed from the last couple of weeks. This week's Aces craft will be the Nemesis battlecruiser, after which all of the unique CBG Valkyrie craft will be complete and I can focus in on Kevin Scholl's craft. I haven't found any more takers from the Aces Club as yet, though I remain hopeful for future contacts. The Saga character scheduled for the week is Twilight. I've got nine Saga characters left on my master list, so that project will be wrapping up here in another month or two. I've already discussed the level of progress I've had with Elegy characters, so I won't repeat myself. I am hopeful that I will get work finished up on the base group sometime in the near future. I don't have any reason to delay working on other portions of the campaign, so I may work here and there on other parts of the campaign (especially as I get ideas for things to add to the story - particularly if I come up with side adventures). Overall plot is something that does need work; I'm still where I was a few months back, with a good ending and a good beginning but a weak center. I hope to get to work on that in earnest soon. That's it for this week; next update between between 11-14Z on September 22nd Honeybear Haley Hasselbeck (nee Almquist) is a third-generation native of the planet Enyo in Vega Sector, born eight years after the attempted Kilrathi invasion of the planet to a pair of farmers of Swedish descent. Her early years were spent largely on her family's farm helping out with various chores. At the age of five she joined the local 4-H chapter and by the age of eight she had learned enough of the topic of farming that her father allowed her to pilot the family's hover-combine for one day of that year's harvest. Young Haley's interest in flight began developing on that day, culminating in frequent jaunts in the family crop duster during her early teenage years (much to her father's chagrin). She earned excellent grades during her compulsory educational years and was among the top students in the colonial high school, also receiving academic letters in swimming and volleyball. When the time came for Haley to select a venue of higher education, she considered the Space Force Academy but was convinced by her high school guidance councilor to pick somewhere that didn't necessarily guarantee military service. She ultimately chose to attend the University of Fribourg in Switzerland on Earth, where again she excelled in both academics and athletics, ultimately becoming captain of the university swimming, volleyball and zero-G wall ball teams and receiving recognition as a distinguished All-Galactic athlete. It was during her time there that she met and began a romantic relationship with Zachary Hasselbeck, a political science student looking into a career in politics. An argument with Hasselbeck ultimately led Haley to come to regret her earlier decision not to attend the Space Force Academy and she decided that she would enroll in the TCSF's Officer Candidate School program upon graduation; Hasselbeck was taken aback at first but ultimately supported this decision. Haley went on to graduate summa cum laude with a BS in Biochemistry. She subsequently submitted an application to OCS and was accepted based on her prior experience with atmospheric craft and her high academic marks. Haley earned her callsign after she won a heated public argument with a fellow flight cadet, Thad "Champ" Cooper, criticizing his general attitude on the seriousness of the training. Cooper got revenge over the incident by tapping into her personal communications holo-vid and setting up a recording relay. Champ intercepted an exceedingly intimate session between her and Zack Hasselbeck and publicly broadcasted it to the entire flight school; she subsequently found herself being referred to as "Honeybear" (Hasselbeck's pet name for Haley) by her fellow cadets (and more than a few instructors). She wanted to resign her commission in embarrassment in the immediate aftermath; it was Angela DeMarco and David Markham that convinced her to stay on, and she ultimately did so while embracing her new callsign. At the end of her formal OCS training, Haley was shipped to TCS Whiting for advanced flight training, separating her from most of the rest of her original training class (with most of them assigned to training aboard TCS Wellington). Honeybear soon earned notable marks in training simulations flying the F/A-76 Longbow heavy bomber, breaking several records in simulated and live-action fleet attack exercises. She married Zack Hasselbeck shortly after completing flight training and had less than a week to report to her first permanent assignment, TCS Centurion. The abilities she demonstrated early on in her career earned her an assignment to the carrier's elite Black Widow Squadron – an unprecedented accomplishment for a rookie pilot. She proved herself in several nasty fleet engagements and earned several commendations during the war's final year. She remained aboard Centurion until the ship's destruction during Operation Behemoth, after which she was reassigned to William Tell Squadron aboard TCS Hermes, where she served out the remainder of the war. She returned to her husband after the War, with the couple ultimately having several children. Appalled by the destruction of Kilrah, she decided to run for public office and was elected to a seat in the Confederation Grand Assembly, a forerunner of a new generation of young veterans entering politics. Honeybear is a whipper snapper who executes everything with speed, precision, and grace. She is a capable dogfighter, but is outstanding as an attack pilot. She is an expert in torpedo attack and atmospheric bombing, and flies very defensively. Off-duty, the tall, blonde Honeybear strikes a stunning figure. She puts on a front due to the plethora of testosterone-laden, alpha-male personalities she has to work with every day and is equally prickly with anyone who tries to hit on her; deep down she is still very much a sweet, "innocent" girl. Category:Blog posts